Ivaneide giving an interview

Remember my first post about working with isolated tribes? Well, off we went into the jungle deep inside the Guajará Mirim State Park between the towns of Nova Mamoré and Guajará Mirim, in the state of Rondônia, Brazil.

There were three men and one woman (me). We drove a four-wheel-drive vehicle over a road that was mostly potholes resembling the craters we see on pictures of the moon. All they talked about along the way was the extra trouble, how women were such fragile creatures—it was clearly up to me to confirm that women couldn’t work among isolated indigenous tribes.

After traveling nearly 200 miles down a dirt road, we parked the car where some squatters were living in the park, heedless of the suspicious looks they gave us. We unpacked the food (2 pounds of salt, 10 pounds each of cassava flour, rice and sugar, a couple of pounds of coffee, a quart of vegetable oil, 5 pounds of dried beef and two cans of condensed milk), plus hammocks and tarps. We each had a 6′ x 9′ tarp, a hammock, a blanket, clothes for hiking and sleeping, a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, a towel, and a pair of 6 foot ropes for stringing up the hammock. For utensils we had two saucepans, a coffee pot, five plates, five spoons, one knife, one 32-caliber rifle, four machetes, a camera, an unreliable compass, a file, a map of the area, a pen and a notebook

In divvying up the gear, it fell to me to carry the camera, maps, compass, pen and notebook — this in addition to my hammock, tarp, clothing and toiletry items. We stuffed everything in a backpack, and it was 3 PM by the time we got underway. We didn’t get far because nighttime comes early in the Amazon jungle, so we halted by a creek at 5 PM. Since I’m a lousy cook, I was put in charge of setting up hammocks and tarps while the menfolk cleared brush from beneath the hammocks, whittled forked sticks to hold the pots, gathered firewood and prepared the meal.

With the camp all set up I went to bathe in the creek. The water was clear and felt great, and I didn’t want to get back out — but it was getting late and dangerous. We ate the “mush” the guys made—rice cooked with macaroni (which was awful!). Then we told stories and jokes around the campfire and fell asleep amid the sounds of the jungle. At 6 AM we all got up, broke camp, had breakfast and resumed our trek. At times we chopped a trail through the jungle, otherwise we followed the creek, never venturing over 500 feet from the water.

We arrived at the banks of the Jaci Paraná, found a lovely waterfall and swarms of biting gnats and mosquitoes. There were so many mosquitoes that I dove into the water to try to lose them, but that didn’t work. They hung around draining our blood. To get across the river we put the backpacks in plastic bags and swam them all the way across to the opposite bank, all the while fearful of getting shocked by electric eels. Once across, we continued following the river bank until about 9 AM when we stopped for some cassava flour and condensed milk. That was delightful—it tasted like manna from the jungle goddesses. Once fed, we continued our hike alongside the river listening to the birds and watching bugs crawl and small game scamper… Ahead of us were strings of rapids, and pairs of macaws flying overhead.

After four days of hiking through gorgeous scenery, being bitten by bugs and feasting on fish, we followed a tributary shot through with rapids up away from the main river, and soon came to a cascade waterfall—magnificent to behold. We climbed the various levels with the water pouring over our sweaty bodies, and were soon cooled off and eager to see what lay over the top.

After shooting a lot of film with a camera no real photographer would be caught dead with, we arrived at the top of the waterfall and sat down with the compass to see where we were.

I forgot to mention that for days we had been hearing a strange sort of whistle. When asked for my take on it I said not to worry, that “The rubber-tappers say it’s a jaguar, but this one’s not about to attack us.” I was kidding, but had forgotten it was August — mating season for jaguars.

Photo Credit: ucumari
under a Creative Commons License

As we poured over the 1978 Radam Brazil image map to check our position, there was a rustling in the underbrush which quickly parted before us. There stood an enormous fantastic and quite dangerous spotted jaguar, sporting an excellent set of ivory-colored teeth strong enough to assure it an adequate diet.

We were too startled to know what to do. The men froze and I single-mindedly went for the camera shouting “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. I want a picture of this.” They were too frightened to move, much less shoot.
Evandro recovered quickly. He grabbed his machete and charged the jaguar. He managed to give it a cut on the snoot, and the animal coiled back to spring. Rogerio swiftly grabbed his 32-caliber rifle and fired a shot over the splendid beast’s head, and off it sprinted into the forest.
Everyone turned toward me. Peeved that I hadn’t let them attack the jaguar, they wanted to skin me alive and stretch my hide for drumheads. I was so frightened by the three men that I trembled for a good half-hour.

After everyone settled down, we strung out differently on the trail. Rogerio and Fernando took the lead, with me in the middle and Evandro taking up the rear. And so we lumbered on in search of signs of isolated native groups living deep within the confines of Guajará Mirim State Park.

Later I’ll tell you about how our search for signs of isolated indigenous tribes led us to establish contact with Akun´su and Kanoé on September 5, 1995. See you then.

This week, the international edition of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel ran an in-depth profile of Chief Almir and the story of the Surui tribe.  It includes a detailed description of the Surui Carbon Project and 50-year plan, and some recent events regarding the monitoring and protection of the forest.  Just last week, the Surui intercepted three trucks from the neighboring state of Mato Grosso as they were about to drive off with illegally harvested mahogany.

An interesting sidenote: the Surui have invented a word for Google in their language: “ragogmakan,” meaning “the messenger.”

And a touching view of a generation gap that spans two worlds: Almir’s interactions with his 87-year old father, Marimop.

Read the article
Download the PDF file

Telegraph21 is a curated video magazine that showcases international documentaries. Today and tomorrow, Telegraph21 will feature Children of the Amazon on their site. The clip they’ve chosen shows the story of Chico Mendes, a rubber tapper from the state of Acre in Brazil who became famous for his work in protecting the forest.

The clip begins with Chief Itabira Surui describing how Chico Mendes first forged the alliance between the rubber tappers and the indigenous peoples. The story of what they accomplished, and at what cost, is told by Raimundo Barros and Chico’s wife Ilzamar Mendes, interspersed with historical footage and the last interview that Chico himself gave one month before his death. Maria Elena Barbosa sings “In Xapuri (Chico Rei)” a haunting ballad that was written about Chico after he was killed. We see historic footage of the successful stand-off which Chico organized to save an area of the forest from being cut down, and we see Raimundo Barros at that time — nearly 20 years younger — patiently explaining to one of the rancher’s workers why the forest must belong to everyone.

This clip exemplifies the work of Chico Mendes and his companions. Often called “the Gandhi of the Amazon,” Chico worked very peacefully, focused on non-violent action and finding common ground. His legacy has been an inspiration to many, including Marina Silva, who grew up in a rubber tapper community, worked closely with Chico, and went on to serve as Brazil’s minister of the environment until 2008. Marina is now a candidate for the presidency of Brazil.

Ivaneide by the Madeira river before it was flooded by a new dam

Some time ago Denise asked me to write about my work with indigenous peoples who live in voluntary isolation. I thought about it over and over. How would I tell about having to constantly battle the chauvinism of my friends who used to tell me this was a man’s work, that a woman was not capable of being part of it?

How would I tell about discussions that lasted for days until they realized that a woman is capable, and that I was not going to give up.

They reasoned that the survey of areas occupied by indigenous peoples living in isolation required many sacrifices; we had to stay from 60 days to 6 months right in the middle of the Amazon forest with no more than two changes of clothes – one for daytime, one for nighttime. We would have to sleep in hammocks with a 6 x 9 ft tarp over our bodies, and we would get very wet if it rained.

Moreover, they said, during hikes that started at 5 a.m. we would have to keep our eyes peeled to identify signs of natives; our trained eyes would notice bent and broken vegetation, and we would be able to tell when this was caused by a native person or by an “anta” (tapir). We would have to be skilled enough to walk through the jungle without touching the traps. When we would find arrows, ceramics, animal remains, harvested fruit, baskets… we would not be able to touch anything. We would record and map everything.

We would also have to report everything we saw–animals, plants, and whether it rained, whether the “white men” were threatening the lives of the natives. We would even have to report on what we ate, whether we were attacked by ants, caititu, alligators jaguars or any other animal living in the jungle. Or, even worse, we could be attacked by loggers, farmers, land-grabbers know as grileiros who destroyed indigenous lands.

The more they talked, the more I wanted to go, and I knew I could handle everything with no problem

I always defended the right of indigenous people who voluntarily want to live in isolation to do so without interference.

Our role is to protect their lands and their lives, but we shouldn’t make contact with them.

The forest fascinated me, and I was passionate about working with indigenous peoples.

The arguments of my male friends did not work on me, and since they could see I wasn’t going to stop saying I wanted to work with indigenous people, they gave up dissuading me.

This was how I became the first woman to work with indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation – and surveying the lands they occupy.

I used to weigh 84 pounds (I’m still skinny, though I try to gain weight), I had long hair, and the boundless energy that only those who believe in life have.

I’ll continue my story later, and I promise I will tell about the time when I was attacked by a jaguar, our onça pintada – one of the most beautiful animals in the world.

Ivaneide with her husband Chief Almir Surui

Ivaneide Cardozo is one of the founders of Kanindé, and has also been active in working on behalf of isolated indigenous tribes. These are tribes who are often aware of the civilization that exists beyond their forests, and also aware of the destruction and disease that comes with continued contact with that civilization. So they have chosen to remain apart, even if they have had some contact with outsiders at some point in the past.

For more information on efforts to protect isolated indigenous tribes, see these links:

www.survivalinternational.org/about/funai
pib.socioambiental.org/en/c/no-brasil-atual/quem-sao/Indios-isolados
pib.socioambiental.org/en/c/no-brasil-atual/quem-sao/contatados-e-protegidos
assets.survival-international.org/documents/14/One_Year_On_Survival_Report.pdf

Beto visiting a Surui village

I’ve had the privilege to know and work with Almir Surui since 1992 or so, going back to his participation in the Centro de Pesquisa Indígena. Two years ago, Almir and I began talking about the Surui efforts to reforest parts of their lands in the 248,000 hectares territory in the Brazilian Amazon, state of Rondônia, that had been clear cut by loggers and cattle ranchers. I introduced the idea to support their reforestation efforts through carbon finance and in that way the Surui Carbon Project started.

Since then, through the vital leadership of Almir Surui, the Surui indigenous people, via their representative body, the Metareilá Association, together with partners ACT-Brasil, Kanindé, Forest Trends, IDESAM, and more recently FUNBIO, have been developing a pioneering REDD+ project to protect their forests. The project started as carbon sequestration through reforestation and evolved to its current REDD focus, that is, reduced emissions from forest degradation and deforestation. This process aims to be a model of good practice for indigenous engagement in REDD and has included an extensive process of community consultation, planning and training, technical assessment and baseline development for carbon accounting, as well as landmark legal analyses of indigenous rights and forest carbon.

The Surui are now at the point where they can initiate informed and equitable negotiations with potential investors to complete the remaining steps needed for successful finance and implementation. Consensus of the project technical team is that there is a very high probability of project delivering at least 300,000 tons of CO2 by end 2012 and approximately 2 million tons to 2020; thus providing a significant contribution towards climate change mitigation via reduced emissions from avoided forest degradation and deforestation (REDD). But perhaps even more important than the project’s direct contribution to control climate change, is the fact that the Surui Carbon project will provide bridge financing for the implementation of the Surui 50 years- development plan, a self-developed and  autonomous action plan for improved territorial governance and community well being.

For more detailed information, please leave a comment or question below, or contact me at bborges@forest-trends.org

Surui man using traditional bow and arrow

Forest by the Surui village

Knowing how far the Surui have come since the loss of over 90% of their people after first contact only 40 years ago —this gives us hope and reminds us that it is possible to turn things around, given the right determination and willingness to work together.

I was born in Holland. My father is a biologist and when I was six weeks old, my parents moved from Holland to a traditional indigenous village in the rainforests of Suriname where I spent my first years. After spending more time in the rain forests of French Guiana, my parents immigrated to Brazil where we lived in Manaus in the heart of the Amazon.

Chief Almir and Vasco at Copenhagen

I first met Chief Almir at a USAID Environment meeting in Manaus in 2004 where we had just presented the results of the Amazon Conservation Team’s mapping work with other tribes in the Amazon. After that first meeting it took another year for us to begin the process of working together and in 2006 we were able to help the Surui people map their own lands as part of their 50 year plan for their future and to provide a basis for their management plan for the Surui  forests (please see related stories in Smithsonian Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Monthly and Mongabay on Almir Surui and ACT’s mapping efforts.

Ever since then, we have expanded our partnership with the Surui thanks to the support of donors like USAID, the Overbrook Foundation and others. We have seen their capabilities grow to take on ever more complex projects that benefit their people and strengthen their protection of their forests. It is our aim to work with the Surui and the other partners to replicate the results and projects pioneered with them with other indigenous groups in the Amazon and beyond. Just in the Brazilian Amazon, indigenous lands cover over 20% of the forest and their inclusion and effective participation is crucial to any solution to end large-scale deforestation.

Vasco painted with jenipapo root by the Waura indians in the Xingu Reserve

The Documentary “Children of the Amazon” gives the viewer a first-hand look into the issues facing forest peoples in the Amazon today in a way few other movies have done. Denise Zmekhol’s account of her return to the Surui tribe is breathtaking. I hope that it can help move more people to reflect and to take action.

During these last years we have also strengthened the Metareilá Association of the Suruí Indigenous People (Associação Metareilá do Povo Indígena Suruí), which currently coordinates all management activities related to our lands and culture. In 2007 we began developing a carbon-focused project — Surui Carbon Project — based on our reforestation program, of which Associação Aquaverde has been a long-time supporter. During the months of December, January and February we planted 45,000 saplings of açai, mahogany, cherry, pupunha, copaiba, cocoa and jatoba trees.

Saving the ancient forest that is still standing in much of our lands is also important. Today we also have partnerships with IDESAM for the development of a carbon project of deforestation that was prevented, and with FUNBIO, for building a financial management tool for our 50-year management plan. In 2007 I traveled to California where we started a partnership with Google Earth Outreach to help the Suruí people tell the world about their work by using the web.

The Surui Carbon Project provides us an opportunity for managing our lands, which hopefully will ensure the sustainable use of the forest and the survival of our culture, and also will create an opportunity for recognizing indigenous people’s knowledge of the forest and for allowing them to contribute to a sustainable and equitable development. This project also involves discussions on how to help solve global problems such as climate change by enabling the creation of a green economy based on sustainability and social justice. In these discussions we asked for support from an institution called Forest Trends.

The Surui Carbon Project also provides a means for supporting the implementation of civil rights policies and creating a “green” awareness and interconnection among all peoples of the world.

– Chief Almir Surui

Below it is an excerpt from my interview with Bruce Gellerman of Living on Earth

GELLERMAN: This is the sound of the Amazon rainforest. It’s one of the richest places on the planet for plants and wildlife and home to scores of remote indigenous tribes. The forest is also one of the most important places in the world for regulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

[CHAIN SAWS AND TREE FALLS]

GELLERMAN: This too is the sound of the Amazon. Chainsaws and bulldozers have been carving away at the rainforest for decades clearing land for highways, cattle ranches and soybean plantations. It’s estimated that nearly 20 percent of the Amazon has been cleared, including an area almost the size of New Hampshire just last year.

Much of the destruction of the Amazon forest has taken place on the territory of indigenous tribes. In just a few brief years, members of many of these isolated societies were wrenched from the stone age into the space age… some driven nearly to extinction by their first contact with the outside world.

Almost 20 years ago, Denise Zmekhol traveled deep into the Amazon to photograph and document their struggles. She recently returned with a film crew to examine the changes the people of the rainforest have gone through since her first visit. Her new film is called “Children of the Amazon.”

It focuses on one tribe in particular: the Surui. Denise Zmekhol says the Surui never had contact with the outside world until the roads we built.

ZMEKHOL: The first official contact happened in 1969 when they were still living in what I call in the film “forest time.” It’s a very recent contact and I think they had to learn a lot about our society and our world in such a small time. So for thousands of years they were living in one way and just 39 years ago everything changed for them.

This past weekend, at the 20th anniversary of the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California indigenous representatives, socially-conscious entrepreneurs and foundations, as well as other green-minded participants, gathered for an exchange of ideas to discuss innovative solutions to the social issues that matter in the “new” green revolution. Honored to be a part of this forum, I and my colleagues, Rebecca Moore, Manager of Google Earth Outreach, and Vasco van Roosmalen, Brazil Director of the Amazon Conservation Team, unveiled the “Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops” Google Earth tour. Our goal with this tour is to tell the world about my people, the Surui, our struggles and our successes, and how our lessons-learned can contribute toward a more sustainable world for everyone. This tour uses Google Earth to share the history and realities of the Surui people and our contributions to preserving the world’s largest rainforest – the Amazon.

In September 1969 – only 40 years ago – the first white men entered our forests. With great hope, we welcomed these visitors in order to build peaceful relations with the outside world. However, our hope for the future was met with great tragedy. Just two years after first contact, the Surui population had dropped from 5,000 people to only 290. Not only did we lose our people to new diseases, our culture was threatened with extinction as a result of the deaths of our elders. At 17, I assumed a leadership role and am now looking to the outside world with renewed hope.

The illegal logging of the rainforest in our territory began by outsiders two decades ago, and still continues today. With help from the Amazon Conservation Team, Kaninde, Google Earth Outreach and other partners, we are bringing the Surui story to the world so that we can strengthen our ability to protect and sustainably manage the 600,000 acres of threatened rainforest which is our home.

Explore the tour in Google Earth

I was also drawn to the children of the rubber tappers…the people who harvest the wild rubber trees. The trees they relied on were also being cut down. I photographed the legendary rubber tapper Chico Mendes and his family. Chico had become renowned the world over for his nonviolent resistance movement to protect the rainforest.

15 years later—and a world away—I returned to these slides, which were never printed, never shared.  The images brought back a particularly searing memory: a phone call from Chico in December 1988, asking me to film his funeral. I told him he was crazy, he wasn’t going to die, he had too much work to do. Two weeks later he was shot dead by a rancher. Stirred by faces of the children in my photographs and haunted by Chico’s untimely death, I was inspired to travel to the Amazon again—this time, to make a movie.

While I expected change, I was not prepared for the extent of it. So much of the forest had been destroyed. My response to the loss is the creation of Children of the Amazon — a tribute to a people struggling to save their forest home. But the goal of the film is more than to bear witness. I hope to offer insight to a distant and remote land while simultaneously drawing connections to our own lives. For we are—all of us— Children of the Amazon breathing the same air, walking the same planet, and in some sense that we have yet to understand, sharing the same fate.

~ Denise Zmekhol